00:00:07
wait guys serious question did you get your invite to our next weirdos audio book club no oh my God I'm so sorry well
00:00:14
consider yourself invited this time you guys we are covering the audible title Blue Beard a suspenseful radio style
00:00:21
dramatization of True Life events leading to the capture of Infamous the infamous Blue Beard Watson who conned
00:00:28
and killed countless women in the early 1900s join us in a special guest on Friday the 13th of December while we
00:00:35
talk about this title join the conversation on Instagram Friday December 13th weirdos audio book
00:00:41
[Music] club hey weirdos I'm Elina I'm Ash and this is morbid hey there Brothers it's also morbid with
00:01:09
a little bit of ambiance because it's lightly raining which we I know I've I'm an elderly person when I say this but my
00:01:17
goodness we needed it no we did my God wait isn't there a song about like needing the rains um I miss I miss
00:01:26
you like the desert misses the rain Yes you knew exactly what I was talking about and I miss you like the deserts
00:01:34
miss the rain is that JLo no sorry no the deserts miss the oh and it goes and I I feel like I can picture that music
00:01:49
video in my head right now I think the JLo one that I was thinking of was like [Music]
00:02:02
everything but the girl is who released that yeah sometimes songs get jumbled in
00:02:07
my head you guys remember it's happened before damn it's a that's a Bop though that is a Bop a Bop I'm going to listen
00:02:12
to that on the way home and I'm going to listen to the JLo song I'll listen to one of those I don't like JLo well yeah
00:02:19
no I don't like her as a person no I don't like her songs either so there's really nothing there for me wait you
00:02:24
don't like don't be Fool by the rocks that I got you don't like that song I do not what what the [ __ ] I remember it was
00:02:31
on like TRL when I was you know for the TRL days and I remember that but it was never I see how old I was when that song
00:02:39
came out because I feel like I remember bopping hard to that I like um often times I don't always but the things I've
00:02:46
seen her and I like JLA the actress like the cell the cell is such a film oh we got
00:02:54
to cover that on scream I the [ __ ] am I doing uh the cell I've never seen the cell is a wild movie see I like um
00:03:05
Monster-in-Law I haven't seen that is that what that one's called is that Mikey's saying yes I trust and Mikey We
00:03:13
Trust I haven't seen that one you haven't seen Monster-in-Law no that's a fun one I've seen her in the cell what
00:03:22
else have I seen her in I'm sure I've seen her another thing Jane Fonda is in Monster in-law and Jane Fonda is
00:03:27
everything yeah I haven't seen that yeah I'm trying to think of other JLo things
00:03:31
J I'm sure there's many that I'm missing right now that people are screaming and
00:03:35
I'm like what a lot of them are romcom so it makes sense that you can't think of them yeah cuz I like a romcom every
00:03:40
once in a while it just has to be a very specific one yeah those are all like the
00:03:44
early a ones and those ones are always fun those are great yeah yeah what a random intro we didn't plan to talk
00:03:51
about any of that no but just happened we went from the deserts missing the rain to JLo hello hello hello uh you
00:03:59
know what a random intro for a random episode tell me everything because this episode so this is about the Mad Trapper
00:04:09
of rat River you couldn't even finish that the Mad Trapper of rat River yes I think I
00:04:17
come from the rat River I'm from the rat River I feel like this is a wild and random and very different tail I would
00:04:26
say than we normally cover but it's one that um unfortun people die during this like this is there's this is not without
00:04:33
death not without murder yeah um not without mystery I love at the at the end of this there is still a mystery that's
00:04:41
involved with it to this day unsolved it's unsolved there's a theory and like it's
00:04:47
a pretty good one but it's still there's still M mysterious elements to this which makes it very interesting to talk
00:04:54
about makes me think of your kids when they were like the quack of mystery the quack of Mystery in the cave of
00:05:01
mysteries cave uh Cave of blanch blanch is like wait I have something to say she
00:05:06
said Mysteries so basically this is his name was um and I should say in air quotes Albert Johnson but it wasn't
00:05:13
because we don't know his real name oh an alias um that is the name that that people know him as okay like you said an
00:05:22
alias uh this is a this is a Manhunt that was so wild and so long and so scary and so iconic that it honestly
00:05:30
doesn't sound real I can't believe I've never heard of this it's a crazy one so let's go back to when this all
00:05:38
began um Canada like the United States like you know like like down here was hit really hard by the economic and
00:05:47
social effects of the Great Depression oh yeah it was it was a widespread issue obviously it wasn't just like in certain
00:05:53
parts feeling it yeah um you know there was a ton of droughts which wreaked havoc on the agricultural industry and
00:06:00
that caused a ripple effect that by 1930 had put as much as as 30% of the workforce out of a job wow and that's
00:06:07
huge yeah that's a lot yeah the economic shock and the hardships of the Depression was really really like
00:06:14
specifically hard on the residents of the more Rural and remote parts of the country because they were lacking you
00:06:20
know like the social welfare structure that a lot of people in urban areas and more like well populated areas were
00:06:26
really relying on yeah and many of these people people were self-sufficient and instead of taking any kind of Charity or
00:06:34
anything like that they chose to seek out alternative means of employment in the small towns and Villages and you
00:06:39
know like military outposts in Canada um in the north and west and in the summer
00:06:45
of 1931 at the absolute peak of the depression a man calling himself Albert Johnson arrived in Fort mcferson which
00:06:53
was a small a remote Village in the Northwest Territories about 650 mi from the nearest cities of White Horse and
00:07:00
Dawson City so very remote at that time it wasn't super unusual for like random strangers to wander into Fort M mcferson
00:07:10
it was usually they were like either on their way to or coming from the more remote parts of the area so it was kind
00:07:16
of like a pass through yeah in those cases it was the practice of the local RCMP agents to briefly question these
00:07:25
people the random people coming through um because like as journalist bar rodent
00:07:30
put it they basically wanted to ascertain their plans and try to ensure that the person was equipped for life in
00:07:35
the rugged North this was obviously about that person's safety they didn't want them wandering out into the
00:07:41
mountains and just like see you later goodbye but it was also about resources because if somebody inexperienced was
00:07:47
going out there to trap or hunt and they got stuck and needed help it's going to
00:07:51
cost a lot it was a lot of effort and the RCMP you know they didn't want to have to expend all those extra resources
00:07:59
that they really didn't have at their disposal at that time on somebody who shouldn't have been out there in the
00:08:03
first place you know it makes sense makes sense yeah on July 21st 1931 the day that Albert Johnson got to Town the
00:08:10
task of questioning the man fell to Constable Edgar Millan remember that name he's going to come up later writing
00:08:16
it down he was one of just three RCMP officers stationed in the area and Milan found him you know Albert Johnson
00:08:24
purchasing supplies in the General Store and Johnson told the mounty that he had
00:08:28
come into the Arctic through the McKenzie river system um he had obviously at this point he had been made
00:08:36
aware of Albert Johnson's presence from some of the local native Trappers in the
00:08:40
area um and basically the uh the native Trappers were saying that they believe this man was like [ __ ] with their
00:08:49
traps essentially like and they had like described him and everything so Millan knew Johnson was lying to him about
00:08:56
where he'd been because he was like I know you've been [ __ ] with those so I know you're not just coming in from the
00:09:01
MacKenzie River system but he was kind of accustomed to dealing with people like this so you know and apparently
00:09:08
Trappers and fishermen kind of like guard their territories pretty closely because they don't want to avoid
00:09:13
competition so it's all like a little bit of a game here of secrecy and all that right um and honestly to Millan it
00:09:20
didn't really matter where Johnson had come from as much as where he was planning to go like you going into my
00:09:27
territory or no like what are you doing from the look of things Albert Johnson was a skilled Trapper and he honestly
00:09:34
wasn't going to need and it didn't seem like he was really even going to accept any assistance from the RCMP so Millan
00:09:40
didn't really press the whole thing he was like I'm pretty sure he'll just go out there and we'll never see him again
00:09:45
yeah um he's like that's ideal and Johnson was giving like super short very CT answers to him and he wasn't making a
00:09:51
lot of eye contact he was making it very clear to Millan that like I'm an isolated person I live an isolated life
00:09:58
I would to keep it that way leave me alone kind of thing leave me alone so Milan was like cool so before
00:10:05
leaving the store he kind of left it alone but Constable Millan told Johnson fine whatever whatever you're doing I
00:10:11
don't give a [ __ ] but he was like if you're planning to do any trapping in the area you do need to obtain a license
00:10:16
and you need to know that but Johnson was just like whatever now a week later Johnson was back at the General Store
00:10:23
and he purchased a 12T canoe and some other a ton of other supplies and the clerk behind the counter was like like
00:10:29
hey you might want an outboard motor for this boat mhm and I guess Johnson flexed
00:10:34
his arms and said no these are good enough for me oh no he's like an OG Chad he's like
00:10:41
welcome to the gun show baby this all I need but you know what's crazy he was kind of right he wasn't really like over
00:10:50
over overzealous yeah he wasn't he wasn't be exaggerating his abilities at all all right like this is well you know
00:10:57
what still though good for him though doesn't doesn't come off great yeah we love a humble King we love a humble King
00:11:04
now after getting all the supplies Johnson headed out to the canoe and began paddling Downstream in the
00:11:09
direction of the Rat River now he spent the rest of the summer and fall building
00:11:14
a small 8x2 cabin on a plot of land that he had staked out for himself about 70 mil from Arctic Red River and that's the
00:11:23
Arctic Red River is where Millan and the other two RCMP officers were stationed out there so he was either building that
00:11:31
cabin and if he wasn't building the cabin he was hunting and building up his food storage for the winter season he
00:11:37
also spent a lot of time surveying the area he was getting to know where he was um and during this time he definitely
00:11:45
learned where the Trap lines were for local trap Trappers where like like I said they're very like territorial about
00:11:53
their trap lines that's like where they set their traps so he made a point of learning that he would know where those
00:11:58
were so it's not like like he like accidentally stumbled upon their traps and like [ __ ] them up like he knew he
00:12:04
was like looking out for that okay um specifically William V and I hope I say everybody's name right William vrea
00:12:11
Jacob dry meat and William narisu which were all members of the local L show tribe and I hope I said that right I
00:12:19
looked it up several places L show tribe okay Edgar Millan hadn't thought about Albert Johnson since he had left fort
00:12:27
mcf ferson in early like the early in the summer when he had met him in the general store right so he wasn't even
00:12:33
thinking about him especially when neris Su showed up at Artic Red River Trading
00:12:38
Post on Christmas day to report that Johnson had been [ __ ] with their traps oh come on dude so initially he
00:12:44
was like what like I don't know who that is now according to neris Su Johnson had
00:12:48
encroached on their trap lines and in recent weeks he had been springing the traps and hanging them from tree
00:12:54
branches oh so he's really [ __ ] with them yeah he's being like deliberate about this and was also making it very
00:13:00
obvious that his interference with these traps were wasn't an accident right like
00:13:04
he could have said before it was an accident nobody could really prove otherwise yeah he's hanging them from a
00:13:09
tree like he's being very obvious about it um so then Milan was like oh [ __ ] I
00:13:14
do remember this guy I remember that interaction I had with him and he remembered that he also hadn't purchased
00:13:19
a trapping license before leaving Fort mcferson like he had told him to and he he was like and I'm pretty sure he
00:13:26
probably didn't get one anywhere else so Not only was his interference a matter that was going to be taken seriously by
00:13:32
the RCMP but now he was also poaching and that was going to be a problem yeah so the next day Millan directed
00:13:40
constables Alfred King and Joe Bernard to travel more than 60 miles out to Johnson's cabin and talk to him about
00:13:48
what was going on he's got some accusations now yeah the two officers traveled by dog sled and arrived a
00:13:54
little past 10:00 a.m. on December 27th and when they reached the cabin they noticed that there was smoke coming from
00:14:00
the chimney and there were snowshoes propped up by the door so it seems like somebody's home he's home uh because he
00:14:07
also he literally couldn't have traveled far without those snowshoes so they knew
00:14:11
he was either home in there or he's like right there yeah like they literally came from by dog sled so that makes
00:14:17
sense exactly so King knocked loudly on the door and announced that they were there but no one replied despite getting
00:14:24
no response the constables knew he was home and they definitely knew they heard them knock yeah so at one point he had
00:14:31
even watched them through the window and they saw him they're like hey it's you were looking for they were like hi and
00:14:38
he saw that they saw him and he just closed the curtains and that was that's moderately iconic now after spending an
00:14:45
hour trying to convince Albert Johnson to open the door and they still got no response the officers had to give up and
00:14:52
walk back to their sleds and they didn't have any way of contacting Millan to tell him what was going on and that they
00:14:59
had made this trip for nothing for no reason so King and Bernard decided to travel the shorter distance to the RCMP
00:15:05
headquarters at I hope I'm going to say this aklavic I looked that up many places as well aklavic okay where they
00:15:14
could obtain a search warrant for the cabin and then they could come back the next day with more officers they were
00:15:19
trying to do it on the up and up yeah and trying not to like waste too many resources it seems let's just get and
00:15:24
take too many trips you know they could have never predicted how this would go I'm so I'm
00:15:32
like what's going to happen you can't it's Bonkers also first I'm just picturing him for an hour like you know
00:15:39
when somebody's at like you know when somebody's at your door like they're going to sell you something and you're
00:15:42
like not the door what do you do for an hour that's at the end in a cabin yeah in like a tiny like eight yeah what' you
00:15:49
say like 8 by 12 cabin do you have a good book in there you got to mhm damn now early in the morning on December
00:15:56
30th after obtaining their search warrant King and Bernard left a kavic for Johnson's cabin this time they added
00:16:05
more RCMP constables they added RG McDow and Lazarus I hope I say this again some
00:16:11
of these names are really tough City Kinley okay Lazarus is a sick name it's true it is um the four men reached the
00:16:19
cabin around noon on December 31st and they went to the door knocked announced they were there again smoke was coming
00:16:26
from the chimney so they knew he was inside ignoring them so King shouted that they had a warrant to search the
00:16:32
premises and if Johnson didn't open the door they were going to force in and enter anyway cuz they had the warrant
00:16:38
yeah so they approached the door and they were coming from a side angle and King reached out to knock again and
00:16:45
seconds later a loud shot rang out oh no and splinters shot in every direction from the door and Johnson had shot a
00:16:57
shotgun blast out the front door and it hit King in the chest oh God and it knocked him off the porch into the snow
00:17:04
and McDow and Johnson ended up like returning fire with each other with pistols right um and attempting to keep
00:17:12
King down long enough so they could get him off to the riverbank out of the line
00:17:17
of fire because he had just Fallen back into the snow Yeah so they're like we would not trying to get you shot again
00:17:22
exactly but they but it it was like crazy like gunfight ensued like barely missed McDow at one Point like it was
00:17:29
gnarly damn and the constables did manage to get back to the sleds at the river banks where they loaded King onto
00:17:35
one of the sleds and like fled out of there King was bleeding like super badly shotgun blasts to the chest like close
00:17:41
range too and they needed now to get back to a kavic to save his life that's where the doctors were and that sounds
00:17:49
like it's not like a a short distance they were 80 miles from where that is and the temperature was almost 40 below
00:17:56
zero oh my God and when they factored in the wind it could drop as low as 90 below zero sorry where are we um we're
00:18:05
in Canada holy [ __ ] that's cold yeah damn yeah so the going back to a cavic from this place it would take a skilled
00:18:16
Outdoorsman with all of the things he needs two days yeah that makes sense conditions and that was like in you know
00:18:23
ideal conditions conditions were not ideal here like not ideal anything but ideal
00:18:29
their sled dogs were already exhausted from getting to the cabin and strong winds and snow drifts had covered all
00:18:36
the tracks that they had laid on the way there so they would have to run through
00:18:40
fresh dense snow to get back oh my God and despite that McDow drove the dogs like as hard as he possibly could just
00:18:48
to save this man's life and they managed to get to a kavic in 24 hours holy [ __ ]
00:18:55
a whole day off skilled Outdoorsman two days D in ideal conditions this is like a legend is this folklore you would
00:19:03
think it is that's the thing God I mean you cannot understate how fast this was and how unbelievable incredible it is in
00:19:11
1931 the Northern Territories were so remote and the route they traveled was like this winding crazy Trail too and it
00:19:21
went over like steep Banks and across Frozen terrain I mean they were hitting every kind of terrain on the way there
00:19:28
it's not like it was this straight shot like down a hill or something like going
00:19:32
up hill down a hill around the trees yeah like winding everywhere in under any circumstances the windshield would
00:19:39
be the biggest challenge windshield is gnarly according to author dick North quote even with a parka fluid from a
00:19:47
running nose freezes in a man's nostrils oh and an ice film will collect on his eyelids oh imagine how uncomfortable
00:19:56
that would be you're flying through it like at high speed you must just be like blinking nonstop oh yeah so apparently
00:20:04
in order to stop frostbite from happening they all so there was four men on the way with King all of them took
00:20:11
turns rubbing King's face to keep him warm to prevent frostbite so they would all just be like rubbing his face and
00:20:18
this man has been shot in the chest by a shotgun and he was alive when they got there the next day holy [ __ ] I wonder if
00:20:24
those conditions helped keep him alive I know you wonder if it helped somehow they immedi imately when they got there
00:20:29
rushed him to the hospital and he was taken into surgery by the resident doctor ja Kart hey which immediately I
00:20:37
have like we have like um ancestry that like went over to Nova Scotia in Canada so I'm like am I related I'll update you
00:20:46
I'm going to look at my [ __ ] damn well I'm going to have John take a lookie aie
00:20:50
um but I was like oh my God that's not same I never see it in any of these I know but the bullet had entered through
00:20:57
the upper left side of King chest and exited through the right and had missed all vital organs wow like miraculously I
00:21:05
just think of that bring it on thing you've been Touched by an Angel girl you've been Touched by an Angel girl
00:21:11
that's crazy yeah while he recovered in the infirmary the other three returned to RCMP headquarters to report what the
00:21:18
[ __ ] had just happened at that cabin yeah now in a kavic inspector Alexander Ames had 11 RCMP officers under his
00:21:26
command and he had three additional con where they just were at the Arctic Red River Outpost that's where they
00:21:32
initially were am selected his nine most experienced officers to go back to the cabin and then sent word to Red River
00:21:40
instructing Millan and his two constables to meet them at the mouth of the Rat River okay cuz Milan was from
00:21:46
the beginning remember and he was one of those three that was at the Red River yep now the men set out for the cabin
00:21:53
early in the morning on January 4th 1932 and they made Camp about 8 mil from the
00:21:58
cabin their plan was to Ambush Johnson and take him in with no shots fired they didn't want all this [ __ ] the next
00:22:05
morning two officers were sent ahead of the others to scout the cabin they found
00:22:09
smoke coming from the chimney so he's home so they made Camp a little closer and then the whole team met up shortly
00:22:16
before noon on January 9th once they got to the cabin they spread out and surrounded the house while amim shouted
00:22:23
for Johnson to come out he shouted to him King was still alive so at the very releas you will not be charged with
00:22:30
murder and there is still time to resolve this matter without trouble okay so he's really trying to talk him down
00:22:36
like nobody I know you're probably freaking out cuz you shot someone in the chest with a shotgun a literal man of
00:22:41
the law like out in the wilderness no fear we can talk about it but like you didn't murder him so there's that why
00:22:48
don't you come out yeah but no reply so instead they were greeted with gunfire from inside the cabin again kicking off
00:22:58
what would be an 18h hour Siege at the cabin I'm sorry what 18 hours how did it take that long how did they have that
00:23:06
much gunfire it's in Wild so initially the officers tried to get close to the cabin trying basically assuming if they
00:23:13
could get inside they could take Johnson down stop the whole thing but anytime they would get close to the small front
00:23:19
door they would have to push back because it was endless gunfire right and it was coming not from the windows but
00:23:26
from Holes that Johnson had drilled near the floor in anticipation of them coming
00:23:32
back that's on another level yeah this man is not well no in fact the angle where the gunfire was coming at them was
00:23:40
like so perplexing to them cuz they were like where the [ __ ] is this coming it
00:23:44
sounds it feels like it's coming out of the ground like what is going on seems like it was and they only learned it
00:23:48
later when they were able to search this place that he had dug a trench a deep trench [ __ ] had a trench
00:23:55
[ __ ] is in the trenches he's in the trenches in his cabin where he has drilled holes into like near the floor
00:24:01
where he can shoot from what the [ __ ] and he's in the trench firing at them from his position near the floor and
00:24:08
from that position it was impossible for the RCMP officers to hit Johnson cuz they couldn't get close enough to the
00:24:14
inside and shooting through the windows from their position was pointless they were shooting through the [ __ ] cabin
00:24:21
The Trenches now given their location the gunfire wasn't the only problem that they were facing at 45 below zero they
00:24:29
were having to continuously move just to avoid frostbite right they couldn't stay
00:24:34
in one position or they'd [ __ ] freeze yeah and to make matters worse they didn't know they were going to be
00:24:39
involved in an 18-hour standoff tonight wed so they didn't pack enough food to sustain themselves or the dogs for a
00:24:47
long period of time no at the riverbank they built fires and officers were rotating between watching the cabin and
00:24:53
warming themselves by the fire and this kept the frostbite from happening but it
00:24:58
didn't solve the other problems and Ames knew he had to come up with a plan quick
00:25:02
or they were going to have to go back to a kavic and maybe risk losing Johnson yeah so when the sun started to set and
00:25:10
the temperatures really started to drop even lower Ames ordered the men to retrieve the dynamite from the sleds and
00:25:17
begin warming it in their coats the dynamite when it was warm enough to use constable new Lang volunteered to toss
00:25:24
the explosives into the room which I was like you know he was like me he was like
00:25:28
I'll do it I love that they didn't bring enough food for this ordeal but they bring Dynamite Just in case when
00:25:35
midnight came and all the flares had gone out Lang approached the cabin quietly and the other officers
00:25:41
distracted Johnson by continuously like likeing the gunfire essentially and he lit the stacks of dynamite and tossed
00:25:48
them onto the roof the explosion blew a big hole in the roof sending the chimney
00:25:53
flying in all directions no more fire and then the chaos of the explosion laying burst through the front door and
00:25:59
found himself face to face with Albert Johnson that must have been horrifying but according to North for who I
00:26:06
mentioned above and we will link in the show notes for some unexplained reason the Constable froze and failed to shoot
00:26:13
him what and in that moment Johnson regained his composure and began firing a pistol in one hand and a saw off
00:26:20
shotgun in the other so Lang stumbled back out of the cabin and went running back to the riverbank Lang Lang L that's
00:26:29
what I said like what happened there shoot him you threw the dynamite you couldn't finish it off come on but the r
00:26:37
CMP agents held out until the next morning January 10th and that's when inspector Ames decided to make one last
00:26:43
attempt at getting him the [ __ ] out of that cabin Ames gathered the remaining four pounds of
00:26:49
dynamite bundled it together lit the fuels fuse and hurled the explosives at the cabin the explosion ripped the roof
00:26:57
clear off the structure and caved several parts of the walls in oh my gosh so basically the entire cabin came down
00:27:04
yeah on Johnson so they were like cool we'll catch him off guard because this whole place just blew up this should
00:27:11
work this should do I have a feeling this will do the trick as and one of the other constables Carl gardland rushed in
00:27:17
and they had flashlights in their hands and they were basically expecting to find him unconscious at the very least
00:27:23
you know but when they pulled away the front door Johnson was not only alert and a like with it but he shot them but
00:27:30
he fired at them with his pistol and he shot the flashlight out of gin's hand what who how did we just pop off like
00:27:38
this I don't know this what this man's MO is at all all I know is he's just going crazy he's going bonkers yeah
00:27:46
balls to the wall so this was clearly unexpected this attack so it drove them both back to the riverbank where they
00:27:52
had no choice but to load the sleds and get the [ __ ] out of there and go back to
00:27:56
a kavic what cuz they're like we we've blown him up twice and he's still shooting like what is going on
00:28:03
[ __ ] literally back at the RCMP headquarters the teams regrouped and we're like uh we need a new strategy for
00:28:11
getting Michael Myers out of this house what would it be like all you can do is literally light it on fire yes several
00:28:17
of the officers wanted to go back and firebomb the cabin they were like let's just literally firebomb this thing but
00:28:23
Ames wanted to take him alive he was like I see why on Jan anuary 15th he sent the Constable's guard Lind and
00:28:31
Millan back to the mouth of the Rat River to keep an eye on the cabin but by the time they got there Johnson had
00:28:37
cleared out and was on the Run well that makes sense too I'm like guys you blew the roof off his place he can't stay
00:28:43
there very long but by then also the news of King being shot and The Siege at the cabin was already national news and
00:28:50
this is all just over traps yeah just he would have just got like a fine or something like it's like holy [ __ ] he
00:28:57
murdered or to kill it c yeah so this is national news journalists are reporting
00:29:02
all of these antics of Albert Johnson and they started calling him the Mad Trapper of rat River whoever came up
00:29:09
with that hats off to them honestly a race the Mad Trapper of river [ __ ] now while the rest of the
00:29:17
team were strategizing back at RCMP headquarters gardland and Milland were cautiously approaching the cabin to
00:29:24
search it for things you know they wanted to find any clues any plans he might have had and the cabin had been
00:29:30
like obliterated essentially I mean yeah we just heard but according to gardland
00:29:34
the agents found it hard to believe their adversary had survived the last Dynamite blast oh so they thought he
00:29:40
died they were like maybe he like was in shock or something when we saw him and he popped up with [ __ ] two guns but
00:29:47
Billy Lumis out in these Street yeah truly but honestly there was he wasn't there and there was little of value in
00:29:53
the cabin um they did find a lot of like a concealed load of supp flies hidden high in the trees nearby which was a
00:30:01
testament really to like his outdoor skills he had hid tons of [ __ ] in the trees just got [ __ ] in the trees he's
00:30:08
wild this is Wy the constables also discovered Johnson's canoe still tied up at the River Edge so that meant that he
00:30:15
had fled Into the Wilderness on foot on foot yeah now on January 16th the search
00:30:19
team departed aklavic in aoic in the direction of the cabin and this time they were well prepared for what they
00:30:26
knew could be a very extended search on very rough terrain among other things they had with them a two-way radio that
00:30:33
would let them communicate quickly and communicate I just said I'm so happy you went there cuz I was like you can't skip
00:30:39
over I was going to say quickly communicate quickly communicate quickly and I was like communicate
00:30:44
quickly wow I loved that uh this would help them communicate very quickly and easily with headquarters you know if
00:30:51
they need an emergency assistance because now we don't know what this dude is capable out in these streets I'm
00:30:56
surprised anybody was even willing to go at this yeah i' be like [ __ ] that you
00:30:59
know what I think I'm going to put my two weeks in and actually I mean my one day here you go I'm going to try baking
00:31:04
like I don't want to do this now at the same time warnings were going out to everyone living in and around uh kavic
00:31:11
alerting them to any of the potential risks we don't know what this dude is capable of he was shooting everybody
00:31:16
well and he's eventually going to need more supplies too so break in now as a result many of the people living in the
00:31:21
more isolated areas chose to stay in a claic while Johnson was captured oh okay now for for nearly two weeks the team of
00:31:30
our CMP officers just scoured the area around the cabin looking for any signs of Johnson any evidence of where he
00:31:37
might have gone two weeks they were looking for him damn unfortunately it was so bitterly cold and the wind and
00:31:45
Sub-Zero temperatures were making it so difficult to search for like long periods of time and then there was
00:31:51
recent snowf fall and heavy drifts that were covering any tracks that he could have left so it was like perfect for him
00:31:57
mhm but in late January Ames and his team received a report of gunshots near Bear River thinking it might be Johnson
00:32:05
hunting for food am sent Millan and three other men ahead to scout the area with a plan for them all to meet up
00:32:11
together after this if they found evidence of him being around okay when they arrived Millan spoke to several
00:32:17
members of the local tribe who told him that they believe the man suspected to be Johnson had holed up in a remote
00:32:24
cabin nearby because they said he could not have crossed over the hills under the current weather conditions I don't
00:32:30
know I think he did I think he crossed them Hills the one of the things they learned after this was maybe don't
00:32:36
underestimate Albert Johnson because holy [ __ ] exactly so with assistance from several native men the four
00:32:43
constables soon found tracks matching those of Johnson's very distinct show snowshoes and followed the trail until
00:32:50
they reached an area covered by this like um basically it was like an area that was covered by a barricade that was
00:32:56
like a natural barricade of trees and boulders and all that stuff okay and there were tracks leading in but no
00:33:02
tracks coming out so the four constables spread out and approached the entrance very quietly yeah they better have but
00:33:09
without warning Johnson began firing at them from behind the tree line pushing them all back of course he did all four
00:33:16
opened fire in the general direction from where the shots were coming from but there was no return fire after that
00:33:22
so they were like oh [ __ ] we either in incapacitated him or killed him so they
00:33:27
waited 2 hours before going to check the area cuz they were that nervous that he
00:33:32
was just [ __ ] with them you know that everybody on the banks was like no you go in no you go we'll just wait we'll
00:33:38
just wait a minute so when they got within about 25 yards of the tree line one of the constables no ver NL verville
00:33:45
shouted watch it and then Dove for cover behind a snowbank as a rifle shot struck
00:33:52
the ground exactly where he had been standing oh my God literally yelled watch it Dove out of the way and it hit
00:33:57
right where he was sitting damn and two of the other officers also scrambled for
00:34:02
cover Antion I it doesn't sound real no it does not but Millan stood his ground and dropped to his knee and fired three
00:34:11
rounds in Johnson's Direction damn Johnson returned fire and hit Milan in the chest Milan apparently bolted
00:34:19
upright and spun around and then fell face down on the ground oh and two other officers provided cover for like cover
00:34:27
fire fire for Carl gardland I just did like a you lit made the thing um and they crawled towards Millan and tied the
00:34:35
laces of his boots together and dragged him out of Johnson's line of fire essentially why' they tie his boots
00:34:41
together so they could literally pull him by the boots oh okay okay okay cuz the otherwi like he was he's literally
00:34:47
shooting at them two officers are providing cover fire while he's literally like trying to drag him out of
00:34:52
the way got it then when they were finally in a safe spot guardin turned Millan over and saw that the bullet had
00:34:57
horn straight through his heart and had killed him instantly so when he bolted upright he just fell and died
00:35:03
immediately yeah and that that's why I said remember Millan I know what a brave [ __ ] dude yeah he was the one he was
00:35:09
like [ __ ] that I'm going to take this guy out yeah now the remaining officers retreated into the woods away from
00:35:15
Johnson's line of sight and they built a lean to to try to protect millan's body
00:35:19
from animals until they could return and then they made their way back to the campsite about a mile away okay the next
00:35:26
day one of them returned to the area to retrieve Constable millan's body while another returned to a claic to report
00:35:32
about what had happened why is this guy so Agro and that's and and they had to tell them that Johnson had escaped again
00:35:39
now Sergeant riddle made it back to aklavic in a little over 24 hours on January 22nd and reported the death to
00:35:47
Ames and Ames sent out the report across the RCMP wire and the news of millan's murder and Johnson's thirdd Escape made
00:35:57
headlines across North America um a reporter from The New York Times called Johnson a two gun hermit that's what
00:36:04
they refer to him two gun hermit well the press maintained that like I'm glad like they definitely maintained like a
00:36:10
pretty like somber tone when they were talking about the the murder essentially um but it also made like the fact that
00:36:18
he escaped three times and this was his third time escaping it didn't make the RCMP look good and they were very open
00:36:24
about that in the Press um and the longer he remained kind of like on the uh on the yam there on the yam on the
00:36:31
Lamb on the sweet potato he was like the more he was out there and the more he's
00:36:36
on the run and the more he's escaping and the more these things get more and more like crazy and you know dramatic
00:36:41
and all that there was running a risk of him becoming a sort of like anti-hero among the anti-establishment
00:36:48
residents across the territories it just like it was starting to turn the story a
00:36:52
little bit and like I didn't even think of that and you don't want that to happen obviously so not wanting waste
00:36:57
any time or for that to happen Ames radioed for additional assistance specifically requesting a plane that
00:37:04
could Scout the area while the RCMP agents and volunteers took to ground searches in response they got a small
00:37:10
craft piloted by William May who was a member of the royal flying Corps and one of the flying Aces who successfully shot
00:37:18
down the notorious Red Baron during World War One oh wow that's no joke incredible and may wasn't just a
00:37:26
talented and experienced pilot he was literally like a living legend who'd helped to open up the Northern Territory
00:37:31
so he was like a big deal that's incredible yeah unlike am's team on the ground he could cover big like swaths of
00:37:39
territory in a short amount of time in the plane and was immediately useful and ruling out the leads that ultimately
00:37:46
provided false in the end anybody saying like I think I saw him they were able to
00:37:50
like get these out now while May looked for Johnson overhead am's team was you know making their way to the sight of
00:37:57
millan's murder on February 5th but there was no sign of Johnson anymore from what they could tell he had never
00:38:04
emerged following the shootout like he had never come back out of that like barricade that he had set up so you're
00:38:10
probably like then how the [ __ ] wasn't he there yep oh he had climbed the nearly 7,000 foot
00:38:16
cliff [ __ ] yep he he climbed a nearly 7,000 foot cliff wall to escape by traveling on the hard packed snow above
00:38:25
the creek beds does anybody else have those relatives that tell like crazy stories from like their days of Youth
00:38:31
and you're like yeah Grandpa like that's cool that didn't happen though this guy
00:38:35
that feels like this like I'm like yeah what this happen like so I didn't come out of the front I just climbed a 7,000
00:38:41
ft Cliff that's not right how is that real that [ __ ] is not real yeah but he is yeah yep like yep what yep uh
00:38:53
yeah he basically he went like so there was hard pack snow above the creek beds and it allowed him to move quickly and
00:38:59
put a lot of distance very quickly between him and whoever was hunting him also working yeah also working to
00:39:07
Johnson Johnson's Advantage was the fact that unlike the large group who required
00:39:12
supplies and needed to manage you know animals that they were using he was traveling alone and he seemed to know
00:39:17
where he was going so he didn't he was just bopping away see you later Yeah by mid-February shut up this ordeal started
00:39:24
in in December you guys by mid February he was joined by several men from the Inu Alo and gin tribes and I again I'm
00:39:35
apologize I'm not saying that as correctly as I should but I I looked it up I promise um who they were familiar
00:39:42
with the region and were just as interested in capturing Johnson as the RCMP yeah they're like get this guy the
00:39:48
[ __ ] out of our territory they had a lot of help from these uh like native tribes
00:39:52
around tribes yeah and on February 12th one of the Native men reported that Johnson had been spotted snowshoeing on
00:39:59
the west side of the Richardson Mountain which indicated that he traveled at least 90 miles since he was last spotted
00:40:06
3 days earlier my God 3 days 90 M on foot by himself no dog sled no nothing and many
00:40:15
of these people even like the the these native men who were helping them were like this feels impossible like this
00:40:21
seems impossible this man so the group began making their way towards the west side of the mountain and on February
00:40:27
14th Valentine's Day He it's birthday yeah May spotted Johnson's tracks from the air and it appeared he'd been
00:40:34
traveling west okay so when the whole team finally reached the area they realized Johnson was traveling across
00:40:41
the Frozen riverbed and his tracks appeared to be less than 24 hours old so in the two days that followed the group
00:40:48
continued following his Trail finding evidence of him along the way and the further they traveled the more recent
00:40:54
the evidence became until on February 17th they discovered tracks and a campfire
00:41:00
that was less than a day old huh so for nearly five weeks the RCMP and volunteers had been tracking Albert
00:41:08
Johnson and having repeatedly underestimated his outdoor skills and allowing him to slip away several times
00:41:16
by the afternoon of February 17th though it appeared that it was Johnson who may
00:41:21
be underestimated ames's men CU in a reconstruction of the days events that was later shown a little before noon
00:41:28
that day Johnson had left the center of the river where he had been walking and climbed a tree on the bank to basically
00:41:35
look out for where the search party was and he appears to have believed that the
00:41:39
party was moving away from him to the South but in reality they were approaching a bend in the river that
00:41:46
would take them northward again okay so he was thrown off by what he was seeing sure although Ames and the other
00:41:52
trackers knew they were on the right Trail they didn't really know that they were this close to catching him even at
00:41:58
that point it was a happy accident it was now assuming he was in the clear Johnson got down from the tree and
00:42:03
continued following the creek cuz he thought they were going the other way right and he turned a sharp corner and
00:42:09
suddenly saw a search party about 300 yards in front of him r r so he quickly strapped on his snowshoes and made a
00:42:16
break for the cover of the forest firing at the group as he moved how many guns does he have he is a gun at this point I
00:42:24
think like he guns run through his blood I think he can just create them at will yeah now
00:42:29
Sergeant Earl heresy who was leading one of the dog teams jumped from the sled and grabbed his rifle and returned fire
00:42:36
and in the exchange heresy caught a bullet in the knee which ricocheted off the bone and traveled upward through his
00:42:43
elbow and into his chest I'm sorry what the actual [ __ ] right oh God that's got
00:42:49
to be awful the damage so while a few of the men were trying to help him the remaining men pursued Johnson into the
00:42:57
woods and they followed his tracks and chased him to one of the cover stations that he had made for himself oh my God
00:43:03
which is basically a ditch surrounded by short snowbanks and it's possible he simply
00:43:09
underestimated how determined Ames and the others were point or maybe he just thought he was going to get lucky or
00:43:16
like he's got away before so why wouldn't I know right but by that point there was really no chance he was coming
00:43:21
out of there alive like it was well he's just one dude like he's got to be [ __ ] tired at this point you got to
00:43:26
get to the end of the road at some point yeah and as one team approached Johnson
00:43:30
from the ice another group circled around and took up positions behind him at a slightly elevated angle Johnson
00:43:37
kept firing at the men on the ice and when he rolled onto his side into the ditch to reload the men above him fired
00:43:45
and one of the bullets hit him in the spine oh by the time they reached his position in the ditch Albert Johnson had
00:43:51
been shot seven times and it was the spinal wound that was the F the fatal wound so they killed him yeah so but why
00:43:59
did he do this what's qu what's crazy too is they were PR they were aware that they had been [ __ ] around by him
00:44:05
before they'd been tricked by him before so they waited 10 or 15 minutes before even approaching his dead body to
00:44:11
confirm that he was dead they were like I don't even want to run up on this dude
00:44:16
like I don't know what he's got going on like Sydney in the end of scream after five weeks of pursuing this man in the
00:44:23
[ __ ] treacherous like Canadian Subzero windchill a billion per [ __ ] Wilderness The Manhunt finally came to
00:44:34
an end here this is like a Discovery Channel [ __ ] episode and throughout the whole ordeal Albert
00:44:41
Johnson never spoke a word to them why from the time they appeared at his cabin knocking on the door until the
00:44:52
time they shot him in that ditch they never heard a word out of this man what a mysterious for some reason that just
00:45:02
gets me no it that gets you he was silent cuz you just picture him being like haha you will not [ __ ] y'all like
00:45:09
you know like like suckers running away yeah or just like yelling nothing nothing never made a sound nothing just
00:45:18
shot and ran who is he that's a great question so once they had received a word of that he was finally dead who's
00:45:27
in the plane there he landed his plane nearby and heresy who was the one that was shot was loaded on board and taken
00:45:33
back to um a clav where he was treated oh good the following day May returned to get Johnson's body and the rest of
00:45:41
the team travel back by sled now the news of his death was honestly celebrated across North America as a
00:45:47
fitting end to uh a scary and also pretty exciting adventure for everybody to follow on the outside um it was like
00:45:56
it was like a story like this didn't feel real it like something F like I said yeah it just felt like this like
00:46:03
unbelievable tale that you were just following along with and you have to remember to the time period where this
00:46:08
was happening like nobody had anything no they just like so they did have this story they did have this exactly and
00:46:14
then the days after that several members of the team provided the Press with descriptions of The Manhunt and the
00:46:20
shootout that sounded more like a [ __ ] like a film you're watching like a war film than something that really
00:46:27
happened um Sergeant riddle told a reporter Johnson fought desperately to the end emptying his rifle and was in
00:46:34
the act of reloading it when killed the accurate shooting of the posi had riddled his body with bullets and the
00:46:40
more the story went around the more it became a little embellished as a one or at least exaggerated in the New York
00:46:46
Times for example May the plane uh the pilot the guy who took down the Red Baron uh he went from being an essential
00:46:54
figure in the third phase of the hunt Ely is to being a major player in the story the entire time Who quote tried to
00:47:01
bomb Johnson from his cabin D and he did not he's like nah he's like no I just came in with my plane at he's like what
00:47:07
I did was enough don't ellish you don't need to say it now once Johnson's body was returned to a claic it occurred to
00:47:14
several people that um the man who had been shot and killed by the r CMP didn't look at all like the photos of Johnson
00:47:23
that had appeared in the Press shut up shut you shut your mouth pictures purporting
00:47:29
to be of him were published in several papers but they turned out to be that of a respected resident of princeon British
00:47:35
Columbia that poor man yeah so it seemed that well a few people in and around um
00:47:41
aklavic had spoken to Johnson at one point or another when he was passing through at least for like a second you
00:47:46
know like the clerk and all that yeah yeah and they were given the name Albert Johnson by him nobody knew who the [ __ ]
00:47:53
he really was that wasn't his real name John so a journalist for the Edmonton Journal
00:47:59
wrote The Secret of Johnson's true identity may never be known and it may never be possible to clear up who he was
00:48:05
or where he came from and why the [ __ ] he did any of this in the early 20th century and before it was like your
00:48:12
identity when you it was a given like yeah if someone told you their your name and your biological information like bi
00:48:19
biographical information there was no way to confirm that information yeah they weren't like checking his insta so
00:48:24
you just assumed it to be true like that's you say name is that that's your name he J and I'm sure he had some kind
00:48:29
of paper saying it too and it's like well and it's especially true of the more rural regions like the Northwest
00:48:35
Territories because a lot of people go there to escape any Modern Life you know so like you say your name is Albert
00:48:42
Johnson that's so it was when the Trapper gave the name Albert Johnson to Millan when he first arrived at Fort
00:48:48
mcferson the previous year like that's what it was you assume that was his name but if it wasn't Albert Johnson who the
00:48:55
[ __ ] was he that's what I'm saying and also like you said why the [ __ ] had he
00:48:59
responded so aggressively to the RCMP yeah like he was just being confronted about trapping yeah like messing like
00:49:07
messing with people's traps why the [ __ ] did he respond like that there was no
00:49:12
reason unless he was wanted for other [ __ ] back in the States which is what I think ex so in the months that followed
00:49:17
the RCMP circulated the only known photographs of the man who they knew as Albert Johnson which were taken after
00:49:24
his death that's all they had okay and in the hope that someone would recognize him be like oh that's my crazy ass
00:49:30
brother and most like for a while nothing was coming and then the first Theory as to his identity came in late
00:49:37
1932 when RCMP officials got a tip that Johnson strongly resembled a man named Arthur Nelson who had been living in De
00:49:45
Lake British British Columbia in the mid 1920s but had traveled North to the Ukon
00:49:51
and was last seen in May 1931 okay just a few months before Johnson arrived at Fort
00:49:57
mcferson they said that's when he had been traveling like into the Yukon that was the last time but other than that
00:50:04
name the fact that he had lived at De Lake no one seemed to know really much about Nelson's life or his history so
00:50:12
years later author dick North put forth his theory that Johnson and Nelson were in fact a North Dakota Criminal by the
00:50:20
name of Johnny Johnson so those were actually aliases Johnny Johnson it's like John Johansson my bra
00:50:27
so according to North Johnson had been born in Norway in 1898 and immigrated to the US with his family in
00:50:35
1904 there when they got there they settled on a farm in North Dakota and in 1915 Johnson was involved in a bank
00:50:42
robbery with another man and his partner was wounded and captured but Johnson escaped see this this sounds more like
00:50:48
it Johnson was eventually arrested and served jail time in Wyoming in 1918 then returned to the farm in the early 1920s
00:50:58
and then disappears from the record and it was around this time that Arthur Nelson appeared in D Lake huh and it
00:51:06
turned out that North's Theory had also been the theory of the RCMP they requested Johnny Johnson's fingerprints
00:51:13
from the US authorities I was going to ask to compare to those of Arthur Johnson yes but the test proved
00:51:20
inconclusive huh now Albert Johnson's identity came up again in two 2007 shut up when a team of filmmakers working on
00:51:30
a documentary about this mystery got permission for their team of forensic experts to have Johnson's body exuded
00:51:36
and DNA testing done the examination of the remains revealed some interesting [ __ ] tell me every at the time of his
00:51:43
death Johnson quote unquote had been about 30 between 30 and 40 years old and was of Swedish ancestry okay he had
00:51:51
spent a lot of time in the American Midwest in his Youth and had suffered from scoliosis
00:51:57
H which is interesting that he was shot in the spine and what killed him very ironic don't you think um and perhaps
00:52:03
most unusual that despite his like clearly like you know Mountain Man individualistic like drive like where he
00:52:12
was like I very isolated very like I live in the outdoors yeah DIY King he had DIY King exactly he had quote
00:52:20
undergone sophisticated and expensive dental work for the period really which is like not lining up yeah no not at all
00:52:28
and although they were able to learn a great deal more about you know the remains known as Albert Johnson many of
00:52:35
those things do like kind of support that theory of Johnny Johnson yeah the forensic team were unable to
00:52:40
conclusively give him a name what the [ __ ] and maybe it's because his like I mean his Antics were so iconic so scary
00:52:51
so intense so gnarly his identity is so mysterious that that I think that's why we will just like I can't give up on
00:52:59
this the Mad Trapper like who the [ __ ] he is and why he did this you can't let it go I will
00:53:05
never let it go as long as I live and it has been a huge fixture in Canadian culture for more than 90 years at this
00:53:11
point like what the [ __ ] is that about this is truly one of the wildest stories
00:53:14
I've ever heard it's inspired countless songs poems novels films which I was like where's I got to watch show me the
00:53:21
film I might write a [ __ ] song about this let's go let's go I've never written a song before in my life I'll
00:53:25
write a song let's go and still we don't conclusively know who this man was and why the [ __ ] he reacted the way he did
00:53:36
and how he was able to survive out there well so Johnny Johnson is the one who robbed the bank yeah and the other two
00:53:42
are alas is they're all the same person I feel like I feel like it's got to be him because he's the only one they have
00:53:48
and who knows what else he did like what other criminal things would have popped
00:53:51
up had the RCMP got him yeah you know I it's just like but not knowing conclusively is driving me [ __ ] nuts
00:53:59
and what a way to go out what a way to go out in a ditch reloading your gun after 5 weeks of running in the
00:54:05
wilderness in Canada yeah when you could have just paid a fine yeah don't keep it
00:54:10
that weird don't keep it that weird wow what a tale I love that story I don't love that people die along the way like
00:54:18
that is so deeply upsetting but but the actual story itself is riveting that is a riveting truly that's a bite yeah it
00:54:27
had me on the edge of my seat like looking at this it's it's crazy damn yeah wow so that is the story of Albert
00:54:37
Johnson quote unquote the Mad Trapper of rat River I'd like to say thank you you're welcome and we hope you keep
00:54:44
listening and we hope you keep it we but definitely not so weird as this guy we already told you not that weird that's
00:54:52
weird what a freaking tale I love it this might be one of my favorite epod whoa bye
00:55:00
[Music] [Music] [Music]